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Tory MP Peter Bone said the report was a "Whitehall whitewash" that should prompt the Tories to abandon the coalition and seek to repatriate powers alone.

He said: ‘This sounds like a Whitehall whitewash. This is a government review, not a Conservative Party review. There is a clear split between the prime minister, who believes we should have an EU like the Common Market and Nick Clegg, who believes it should be like the USSR.

‘While there’s a coalition we’re not going to make an serious progress. We should fire Clegg and govern alone. This exercise was an irrelevance. It is completely predictable that the Foreign Office would arrive at a pro-EU conclusion."

Douglas Carswell MP said he was not surprised that the reviews had failed to say that membership of the EU was damaging Britain’s interests.

He said: “What would be truly shocking would be if they did not think that being part of this wretched club.

"The whole point is that the bureaucratic elite of this country have always loved Europe – they took us into the EU. We need a referendum so 60 million people, not just Sir Humphrey can have the final say.”

Conservative MP Priti Patel added: “I am surprised because other research and Government data has demonstrated that they are some obvious barriers and hindrances that need to be addressed in the workings of our relationship with the European Union.”

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independent Party, said the reports were “a futile and cynical PR exercise” by the Coalition.

But the reports were seized on by the Liberal Democrats. Fiona Hall, leader of the LibDems in the European Parliament, said the review should inject “a welcome dose of realism” into the debate on Britain’s EU membership.

All 26 EU member states were contacted and told they were “welcome to contribute” but only Italy and Bulgaria made formal submissions to London.

Overall, more than 500 submissions were made to Government during the consultation stage of the reports, which took up to eight months to draw up.

A Government official said: “We are happy with the overall balance of evidence. The exercise is not to reach definitive Government judgments in these things.” The official said the review had not been “designed to produce recommendations or make EU policy”.

The reports found that the EU internal market helped to make the UK an attractive destination for inward investment around the world, and the scale of a domestic market to allow them to grow.

One submission from Vodafone described how the telecommunications company had been able grow from being a small firm in Britain, to expanding into Europe and then the world, helped by British membership of the EU.

However businesses were concerned there was too much regulation at the EU level, and that a proposed tax on financial transactions was inappropriate.

On foreign and defence policy, the report noted the balance of powers lay squarely with the member states with all significant decisions requiring unanimous voting, although it noted “tensions” in how EU foreign policy was developed.

The review found that Britain gives the EU some £1.2billion of aid money every year but it found that parallel policy making in the UK and EU had “the potential to result in conflicting policies”.

On development of genetically modified crops, the review also gave vent to concerns that the EU was applying “a political overlay that disrupts trade and stifles innovation, putting all EU countries at a competitive disadvantage”.

The report on animal health and welfare also raised concerns about the pet travel scheme, adding that Britain should try to bring in more stringent controls.